Joe Jackson
With a remarkable career spanning over four decades, a discography that includes 20 studio albums and five Grammy nominations, Joe Jackson has left an indelible mark on the music world. His loyal fanbase prizes Jackson’s unapologetic curiosity, impressive musical diversity, and unique artistic perception – ready to follow and embrace their idol in any new musical adventure he wants to explore. Joe Jackson’s audience expects to be surprised, and with his latest endeavour the artist once again succeeds excellently, doing so by introducing an extraordinary artist named Max Champion, a representative of the genre known in Britain as Music Hall. The genre started in the pubs and streets of London in the mid-19th century and grew into the first form of mass entertainment to be created by the working classes. By 1900 it regularly drew huge audiences from across the whole spectrum of society, from prostitutes to princes, all singing along with superstar performers in gorgeous theatres (some of which still survive). Like its American cousin Vaudeville, Music Hall featured magicians, acrobats, and ventriloquists – elements that we still see today in musical theaters and cabaret shows. One of the most fascinating of the later Music Hall performers was Max Champion. We know little about him, except that he was born in London in 1882. Champion was almost completely forgotten until the sheet music of his songs was found in Valletta, Malta, in 2014. How it got there is a complete mystery. “What A Racket!” presents eleven of Max Champion’s songs for the first time in more than a century. According to producer Joe Jackson, ‘These were wonderful songs in their time, but they’re surprisingly modern, too. Sometimes it’s almost as if Max is speaking, from his London of the early 20th century, directly to us in the early 21st’.
